Romania’s virtual government adviser ION has reportedly received, in the first week after its launch, approximately half a million messages and tags in social media from Romanians. The main topics of discussion regarded education, the improvement of the public health system and the conditions for people with disabilities or for the elderly, low salaries and pensions, as well as the need to improve living conditions in the country’s big cities, a press release from the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, reads.
In addition to the need to improve the education and health systems in Romania, citizens expressed their concern regarding low salaries and pensions, in the context of inflation and rising prices, both for food and medicine and medical services.
Regarding the living conditions in the big cities, the Romanians sent numerous specific messages related to the way of administering the public domain, expressing their desire for more parks and green spaces, bicycle paths, but also for the fluidization of traffic in the big cities, the first such places for feedback being Bucharest, Brasov and Ploiesti.
Apart from these priority needs, the protection of the environment, forests, waste management and the fight against corruption completed the list of topics addressed by Romanians in their interaction with ION.
According to Agerpres, the project figures 10 days after launch are as follows”
- over 1 million visits to the site, over half a million messages;
- nearly 1,000 people applied to join the ION research or volunteer team: international Olympian medalists, Romanian students at Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and at the top technology faculties in Romania;
- dozens of Romanian and foreign private companies want to get involved in the project, to support ION’s development, to provide it with computing power;
- almost 10,000 people voted for ION to come to their city. At the moment, Bucharest is in first place, followed by Iasi, Cluj and Timisoara.
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